2022 Mercedes-AMG | Petronas F1 Team

[ringo]

Why are we talking about Max in here?

anyhow Ryar is right that Lewis did not put in enough work with the new clutch rules. Nico kept getting better starts to take P1.
Lewis undestimated how critical that was. It was not the main reason Nico got more points but it contributed big time.

As for George vs Lewis.. i'm not worried. Every year since Lewis came to F1 there has been a target on his back. People want to see him fail or get beaten for some reason. Reminds me of Floyd Mayweather. As it was in the begining so shall it be in the end. Lewis is unlikely to be bettered in his career by a teammate. Im not talking points. Talking about being slower in qualy and race consistently and accepting he is slower. George is quick but he isnt peerless.
Latifi seemed closer nearing the end of the season. Charles was another one that seemed peerless. But sainz brought him down to earth.
George will race better than Bottas, but i suspect Bottas raw qually pace is about equal to George's or a tiny bit better.
What interests me is having 2 british drivers. The media will influence the atmosphere between the two as they will support George more naturally. Lewis may also need to hide his hand for the whole year too. It seemed he trusted Bottas more than anyone else to share info.

[e30ernest]

The awful price that Lewis paid in 2016 was that, he lost starts in Australia and Bahrain. Especilally in Bahrain, where after his poor start, he became a target for a reckless Bottas (in a willaims) that caused car damage to Lewis. That damage needed replacement, which failed again in qualifying in China. In China race, as he started from behind, he had a collision and damaged his wing adding further agony. The famous Spain collision, where he once again had a poor start and crashed into Nico. That was the awful price that I am talking about from which he never recovered. Had he done his homework well in testing, he could have avoided those start f*** ups, which he sorted well after mid season. Until then, he believed it was the problem in equipment, but more serious work later helped him overcome it. That is the kind of lapse in focus to understand subtle nuances that can put him back in a season full of unknowns on the car.

I agree with you that Lewis missed out on the new clutch for that season and it did cost him quite a bit. However, Lewis has also proven that year after year, he learns from his mistakes from that year and returned the next year stronger than ever. I do not think Lewis will repeat those mistakes again.

If Russell does beat Lewis (which I do believe there is a chance of happening given his raw pace combined with his age advantage), I do think it will be fair and square, and not due to some oversight by Lewis.

[Ryar]

The awful price that Lewis paid in 2016 was that, he lost starts in Australia and Bahrain. Especilally in Bahrain, where after his poor start, he became a target for a reckless Bottas (in a willaims) that caused car damage to Lewis. That damage needed replacement, which failed again in qualifying in China. In China race, as he started from behind, he had a collision and damaged his wing adding further agony. The famous Spain collision, where he once again had a poor start and crashed into Nico. That was the awful price that I am talking about from which he never recovered. Had he done his homework well in testing, he could have avoided those start f*** ups, which he sorted well after mid season. Until then, he believed it was the problem in equipment, but more serious work later helped him overcome it. That is the kind of lapse in focus to understand subtle nuances that can put him back in a season full of unknowns on the car.

I agree with you that Lewis missed out on the new clutch for that season and it did cost him quite a bit. However, Lewis has also proven that year after year, he learns from his mistakes from that year and returned the next year stronger than ever. I do not think Lewis will repeat those mistakes again.

If Russell does beat Lewis (which I do believe there is a chance of happening given his raw pace combined with his age advantage), I do think it will be fair and square, and not due to some oversight by Lewis.

The problem is, no one knows if he is already lagging behind due to his current situation. While he was never interested in testing for majority of his career, he started taking to it since 2017 as Vettel and Ferrari had a leg up on them in terms of tyre life. He started volunteering to test more for Pirelli as he finally realized the value of it. Even last year, reportedly, he spent a lot of time in simulator as Max was moving ahead and he needed to learn more things on the car, while he was never big on simulator testing. It shows there is always an area to improve on, regardless of the driving talent which can help the competitiveness. With age not on his side, cars changing so massively with a highly rated young gun next to him, he should be doing double the work, not missing from the scene. If he loses out this year due to some kind of potential car acclimatization issues, which could have been avoided with a lot of home work (engineering whiteboarding, simulator work, mechanical debrief, tyre detailing, data analysis), neither he nor his fans have to blame those failures. No news in regard is potentially a bad news. We live in the age of social media and if he was already in factory, someone would have reported it by now. This is going to be very interesting.

[AeroDynamic]

When a point is made that I don’t agree with, I’m happy to counter it using the fan’s driver as an example to make a counter point. It was suggested a faster Russell means it’s over for Hamilton. I used another drivers first 3 years at RBR as an example that the driver with the pace edge doesn’t necessarily win across a season. Danny Ric beat a faster team mate 2-1 conservatively or 2-0 if take into consideration how unreliable his car was and his situation at RBR after the summer break.

Hamilton will need to prepare plenty for this season otherwise he will be starting slow for sure, regardless of Russell; he has the Ferraris, Red Bulls, and some potentially unseen title contending team to think about, beating Russell isn’t enough unless the car is dominant.

If Hamilton is back at the factory workin hard, do they tell everyone that? Not if the ‘retirement’ decision looming over the Abu Dhabi controversy is part of the strategy to emphasise to the FIA how serious the matter is. Letting the world know he’s back, hard at work for the new season makes it clear his intention at this time is not to retire.

[Ryar]

People want to see him fail or get beaten for some reason. Reminds me of Floyd Mayweather. As it was in the begining so shall it be in the end. Lewis is unlikely to be bettered in his career by a teammate.

The better definition is, the more successful an individual or a team is, the more interesting to see them facing tougher competition. The idea is to see how much more elated the competition would be, when there is one. It was the same with Ferrari/Schumacher era and same with RB/Vettel era and now with Mercedes/Hamilton. It's no different. After cheering the early success of of these eras, people quickly become bored of monotony and want that to change and want to see someone else bettering them. It's very natural. If you are a deeply attached fan of that driver or team, you may feel like the whole world is after to get him or the team. But in reality, people want baton of success to move on, monotony to break, driver/team being bettered and there is an element of newness.

[dans79]

The number one thing George will have to prove, is that he can handle the week in week out pressure and stress of driving a car that will most like be at the sharp end of the grid.

We have seen abundant examples of young drivers taking to the sharp end of the grid like duck to the pond. Someone like George has won his junior championships, which obviously gives him the mindset to fight at the front.

Just like every other major sport, people are more likely to fail when they reach the top tier, than they are to flourish. Success in low tiers, or at the back of the grid is no guarantee of success, all you have to do is look at all the junior formula champions that never amounted to anything in F1.

[e30ernest]

The problem is, no one knows if he is already lagging behind due to his current situation. While he was never interested in testing for majority of his career, he started taking to it since 2017 as Vettel and Ferrari had a leg up on them in terms of tyre life. He started volunteering to test more for Pirelli as he finally realized the value of it. Even last year, reportedly, he spent a lot of time in simulator as Max was moving ahead and he needed to learn more things on the car, while he was never big on simulator testing. It shows there is always an area to improve on, regardless of the driving talent which can help the competitiveness. With age not on his side, cars changing so massively with a highly rated young gun next to him, he should be doing double the work, not missing from the scene. If he loses out this year due to some kind of potential car acclimatization issues, which could have been avoided with a lot of home work (engineering whiteboarding, simulator work, mechanical debrief, tyre detailing, data analysis), neither he nor his fans have to blame those failures. No news in regard is potentially a bad news. We live in the age of social media and if he was already in factory, someone would have reported it by now. This is going to be very interesting.

The keyword there is "test". Right now, the cars are so new I think Lewis won't be missing much until he actually gets time behind the wheel of the actual car. You can't say he'll be lagging behind in development since he would have been working on the car longer than George would be (even with the month and a half off Lewis is having right now).

If he is driving again this year, I'm pretty sure he'll be putting just as much work (if not more than) as last year.

[proteus]

When a point is made that I don’t agree with, I’m happy to counter it using the fan’s driver as an example to make a counter point. It was suggested a faster Russell means it’s over for Hamilton. I used another drivers first 3 years at RBR as an example that the driver with the pace edge doesn’t necessarily win across a season. Danny Ric beat a faster team mate 2-1 conservatively or 2-0 if take into consideration how unreliable his car was and his situation at RBR after the summer break.

Hamilton will need to prepare plenty for this season otherwise he will be starting slow for sure, regardless of Russell; he has the Ferraris, Red Bulls, and some potentially unseen title contending team to think about, beating Russell isn’t enough unless the car is dominant.

If Hamilton is back at the factory workin hard, do they tell everyone that? Not if the ‘retirement’ decision looming over the Abu Dhabi controversy is part of the strategy to emphasise to the FIA how serious the matter is. Letting the world know he’s back, hard at work for the new season makes it clear his intention at this time is not to retire.

He is in the US if i am not mistaken?

[basti313]

When a point is made that I don’t agree with, I’m happy to counter it using the fan’s driver as an example to make a counter point. It was suggested a faster Russell means it’s over for Hamilton. I used another drivers first 3 years at RBR as an example that the driver with the pace edge doesn’t necessarily win across a season. Danny Ric beat a faster team mate 2-1 conservatively or 2-0 if take into consideration how unreliable his car was and his situation at RBR after the summer break.

Hamilton will need to prepare plenty for this season otherwise he will be starting slow for sure, regardless of Russell; he has the Ferraris, Red Bulls, and some potentially unseen title contending team to think about, beating Russell isn’t enough unless the car is dominant.

If Hamilton is back at the factory workin hard, do they tell everyone that? Not if the ‘retirement’ decision looming over the Abu Dhabi controversy is part of the strategy to emphasise to the FIA how serious the matter is. Letting the world know he’s back, hard at work for the new season makes it clear his intention at this time is not to retire.

He is in the US if i am not mistaken?

Yes, he was spotted in front of a shop offering cryo relax methods. A usual thing today in professional sports to regenerate between hard matches or hard workouts. You do not do this for fun, it is not funny.
In other words: He is working out like crazy.

This is exactly what I have expected. Besides all Max and Abu Dhabi nonsense, I am sure that Lewis and his team knows exactly what went wrong. They are smart and not go into the fan mode of blaming others, but look for own improvements. And it was clear through the season, that he was not at maximum level, obviously hampered by the covid infection, every week on another party...
So I think the only right decisions is to switch off the social media, stay in the dojo and do everything to prepare for the next season.
I am also sure he is working on the simulator results, even though he is not sitting in the Merc sim. He can deliver input on the drivers remotely, he can see the handling and is surely closely involved into the discussions. But I also expect him to be back in the factory more than ever.

The issue for him is, that Russel is simply an unknown. He needs to be at 100% from the beginning of the season to not face another 2016 in the worst case.

[Just_a_fan]

When was the last time there was so much media drama around Lewis' absence from the scene that required Mercedes to provide updates? Never.

There is media drama because the media want there to be drama. It's click bait. All of them have the same byline - "Lewis Hamilton's silence since Abu Dhabi makes people think he's going to retire". There's no substance in any of the stories, they're all the same thing. He's silent so he's obviously thinking of retiring. If that's "drama", I'd hate to see how people would react to real drama.

How many times did Lewis visit the factory last winter? How many sim sessions did he do? How many meetings did he have with his engineers? How many times this winter has he done those things?

Exactly - you, like I, don't know.

Here's an easier one - how many times has George visited the factory this winter? How many sim sessions has he done? How many meetings has he had with his engineers?

The fact that a team and driver, that have been at the forefront of F1 social media engagement, have decided to step back from social media, doesn't mean that they aren't doing anything at all. They're just choosing to do it out of the glare of the media spotlight. And who can blame them? You can place a good bet that the first race in 2022 will have Lewis and Max together in the interview pool - thanks to Liberty wanting "drama". The journos will just ask the obvious inane questions about how Lewis feels about the end of last season, blah, blah, blah. Why spend the winter answering those same questions over and over just so the media can have something to write about. Save your energies for 2022 and leave them stewing for the winter whilst you get on learning the new car. Seems like a decent strategy to me.

At this point, only Lewis and the team know what Lewis is going to do in 2022. And they aren't telling anyone. So the media are just doing what they do - write sensationalist nonsense until the reality of the situation becomes known.

[Henri]

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/why- ... s/7733148/ sims are getting important

[Jolle]

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/why- ... s/7733148/ sims are getting important

I expect “the sim” is less important for the racing drivers to get to grips with the car, but especially important with the different procedures, strategies and protocols. This for the past few seasons have been a weak point of Mercedes team. How to maximise SC situations, what to do with trouble on track anywhere at any time, qualifying runs and timing, etc etc. Making the 50-ish people behind screens, pit wall and driver work as a well oiled machine.

[Just_a_fan]

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/why- ... s/7733148/ sims are getting important

I expect “the sim” is less important for the racing drivers to get to grips with the car, but especially important with the different procedures, strategies and protocols. This for the past few seasons have been a weak point of Mercedes team. How to maximise SC situations, what to do with trouble on track anywhere at any time, qualifying runs and timing, etc etc. Making the 50-ish people behind screens, pit wall and driver work as a well oiled machine.

Those aspects are modelled differently. They use Monte Carlo simulations for SC scenarios, etc.

The "sim" is a driver-in-the-loop engineering tool. It allows the team to study the effect of different degradation levels, wind directions and speeds, temperature variations, suspension settings, etc.. The problem for the sim builders is developing accurate models of the tyres, etc., so that the sim is as close as possible to the real tyres on the real car.

[Morteza]

[dans79]

The "sim" is a driver-in-the-loop engineering tool. It allows the team to study the effect of different degradation levels, wind directions and speeds, temperature variations, suspension settings, etc.. The problem for the sim builders is developing accurate models of the tyres, etc., so that the sim is as close as possible to the real tyres on the real car.

One thing that I think is often overlooked, is that given Lewis wealth, he might own his own personal sim (any of the top drivers could afford it), that's just shipped to where ever he is going to be for a while. We have a company here in town that builds civilian and military flight simulators, and they are remarkable cheap for what they are (relatively speaking).